20VC: Front's Mathilde Collin on Why Discipline Is More Important Than Vision, The Right Way To Approach Investor Updates and Director Reports & How To Effectively Structure 1-1s

Mathilde Collin is the Co-Founder & CEO @ Front, reinventing the email inbox with new workflows and efficient collaboration so people can accomplish more together. To date, Mathilde has raised over $79m in VC funding with Front from some of the best in the business including Bryan Schreier @ Sequoia, Initialized, Uncork Capital, Boldstart and individuals including Andrew Chen, Elad Gil, Ray Tonsing the list goes on. With 4,500+ customers, and 100+ employees, in Paris, San Francisco and Amsterdam, Front is one of the fastest growing companies in SaaS and Mathilde has become a thought leader for the next generation of SaaS CEOs, read more on her blog here. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Mathilde made her way from product manager in Paris to founding one of the hottest and fastest growing companies in the world of SaaS in the form of Front? 2.) What does Mathilde mean when she says, "I would choose discipline over vision any day of the week"? What does discipline really mean to Mathilde? Why is it a priority in the early days? How can a VC stress test and determine the level of discipline a founder has in first meetings? What are the signs or leading indicators? 3.) Communications: Investor Updates: What is Mathilde's biggest advice to founders when it comes to investor updates? What should they contain? How often should they go out? How should founders ask for help in updates? Where do founders often make mistakes? Revenue Updates: Why does Mathilde do revenue updates with the team? Is there a danger of being too transparent? What are the benefits of this transparency? What is the structure of the update? Who is privy to it? Direct Reports: How does Mathilde communicate with her direct reports? Why does Mathilde believe that CEOs should have their calendar public? What is the right cadence for these direct reports? 4.) How does Mathilde approach and think about fundraises with Front today? How can founders know when is the right time to raise? How does Mathilde think about building relationships with investors when she is not raising? How transparent should founders be when they are not raising? What are Mathilde tips for always overshooting her numbers? How does Mathilde conduct DD on potential investors in the company? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Mathilde’s Fave Book: The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Mathilde on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Harry Stebbings?

  You are listening to the 20 minute VC with me, Harry Stebbings, and I would love to hear your thoughts and feedback on how we can make the show better for you. And you can do that on Instagram at H Stebbings 1996 with two Bs. I answer all messages there personally. But to the show today, and a figure who is fast becoming a thought leader for leadership skills and tactics for the next generation of CEOs. Her writing is always a must read for me. And so with that, I'm thrilled to welcome back to the hot seat today, Mathilde Collin, founder and CEO at Front. Reinventing the email inbox with new workflows and efficient collaboration so people can accomplish more together. To date, Mathilde's raised over 79 million dollars in VC funding with Front from some of the best in the business, including Brian Schreier at Sequoia,

• 0:40Harry Stebbings?

  initialized UnCork, Bold Start, and individuals including Andrew Chen, Elad Gil, and Ray Tonsing, just to name a few. Today, with over four and a half thousand customers and 100 plus employees in Paris, San Francisco, and Amsterdam, Front is one of the fastest growing companies in SaaS. And again, I urge you, Mathilde's writing is a must read and links can be found on the 20minutevc.com. But before we dive into our episode today with Mathilde, any VCs listening? Yep, well, check out CrunchDex. CrunchDex is the first company signal database on the market. It allows you to discover the world's fastest growing tech companies before anyone else. Check this out, CrunchDex launched only two months ago, yet it's already used by world leading investors who collectively manage over $8 billion worth of assets.

• 1:22Harry Stebbings?

  So if you want to stay ahead of the curve, check it out at crunchdex.com. A lot of what we do on the 20 minute VC is discuss scaling businesses, talk to experts, pick the brains of founders and investors who tell us about the trends to watch out for, offer tips on fundraising, and teaches how to excel at any company stage. But there's no playbook for building a great business, but we can certainly learn from people who've done it before. Beyond listening to this podcast and talking to mentors and advisors in your own network, it's important to have resources you can turn to when you're tackling a new challenge. And Stripe has built those resources for you, whether you'd like to learn how to run a pricing experiment or build a knockout landing page. Stripe gives you the information you need to start, run, and scale a technology company.

• 2:01Harry Stebbings?

  And their guides are often written by or feature people like Elad Gil, experts in their space who you've probably heard on this very podcast. And you can read my favorite guide. On scaling engineering organizations and many more on Stripe.com forward slash twenty VC. That's T W E N T Y V C. And last but by no means least, to scale, you need customers. And Intercom offers a new and better way to acquire, engage and retain customers. They've built a suite of messaging first products from chatbots to a totally reimagined business messenger that modern internet businesses use to accelerate growth across the customer lifecycle, from acquisition to engagement and support. And over the past eight years, they've totally reimagined what a business messenger can be, which is way more than simply live chat. Today, Intercom is used by the world's most forward-thinking companies.

• 2:45Harry Stebbings?

  Eighty-four percent of Y combinator companies that use a messaging or live chat tool use Intercom. Astonishing fact, that one. And they have over thirty thousand customers, including larger companies too, like New Relic, Atlassian and Shopify, and also smaller companies like Airtable and Coda. But you've heard enough from me, so now I'm so excited to hand over to Mathilde Collin, founder and CEO at Front.

• 3:10Speaker 01

  You have now arrived at your destination.

• 3:13Harry Stebbings?

  Mathilde, my word, it has been an incredible two years for you and for Front, but so excited for this round two. So thank you so much for joining me again today.

• 3:21Speaker 02

  I'm so thrilled to be here today.

• 3:23Harry Stebbings?

  Well, thank you so much. But for those of us that made the mistake of missing our round one, let's get the ball rolling today with a little bit on you. So tell me, Mathilde, how did you make the move into the world of startups and really come to found one of the hottest companies in the form of Front?

• 3:37Speaker 02

  I started this company five years ago. Before that, I had only been working for one year in a startup. So, you know, my work experience is limited. I think since I was a kid, I wanted to start a company. And the reason for that is very naive. It is, I wanted to create a place where I would be happy to come to work every day and hopefully other people would be happy to come to work every day. And that's really why I started this company. So then I met my co-founder in Paris. I didn't know that I would move to San Francisco. Most of our customers were in San Francisco, so then we moved. And now we're here and we have a hundred and thirty employees, five thousand customers. And I'm talking to you for the second time, which probably means that we've done a few things right.

• 4:17Harry Stebbings?

  I think it definitely does mean you've done a few things right. Can I ask, and this isn't on the schedule, was it a difficult mental barrier to make the move to San Francisco and leave Europe? Or was that just a very obvious kind of progression of the company itself?

• 4:29Speaker 02

  So I think it wasn't a hard decision just because we didn't do it at once. Meaning we first moved for Y Combinator, which was a three month program. So then I thought after three months, I will have a better idea whether I would enjoy being here and my team would enjoy being here. And then after Y C, I decided to move here, but the French team went back to France so that we could figure out the visa situation. So it actually took a year and a half. So it's not like one day I'm telling the team, guys were moving to San Francisco. It was a collaborative process and therefore was a pretty easy one.

• 5:03Harry Stebbings?

  I do wanna start though with something that I've heard you say before and it really struck me actually. And it's as a founder, I'd choose discipline over some grand vision any day of the week. Can I ask, cause discipline is a word that's bandied around today. How do you define discipline and what does discipline mean to you?

• 5:18Speaker 02

  It's a good question. I think it's as simple as having some rules and following them and having no excuse for not following them. I think bringing a lot of consistency in everything that you're doing.

• 5:33Harry Stebbings?

  What makes you think then discipline and that kind of rules based approach is important over vision in the early days especially?

• 5:40Speaker 02

  So there are a few things. One is, I actually think it doesn't matter if you don't have a grand vision from day one because as soon as you know that you're operating in a market that could be huge, then you'll have all the time you need to figure out what will be step two, step three, and then step 10 of your strategy. So I can tell you very honestly that the vision of what I pitched during our Series B 18 months ago is very, very different from the vision I had pitched after my seed round or Series A round. So that's one, you'll have time to figure out your vision. And then two is, I believe that success will happen only if you're consistent. I've not found any other way to be consistent than a ton of discipline. So that's the reason why I think one is more important than the other.

• 6:24Harry Stebbings?

  Okay, I need your help then because as a VC today, your vision and grand vision as to how this could scale to be a billion dollar company is always one of the questions that we ask. Does that mean that actually I'm wrong in asking that? And how should then I think about and maybe change my approach in terms of engaging? With startups on how they think about their vision.

• 6:41Speaker 02

  So I guess it's like, of course, you should ask what's the grand vision? And why could it be the single biggest company that has been created in the past 20 years? And every investor wants that. And that's fine, but I think it's all about the weight that you're put in that. And I think, you know, you can put a 10% weight, that's important. But 90% should be, okay, now how confident I am that the person can execute on this grand vision? Because it's super easy to say, this is how big my company could be. And this is insanely hard to make it happen. So I guess now then the question is, how can you test for discipline? And that's a harder question, but I would really encourage you to try to assess that when you meet entrepreneurs.

• 7:25Harry Stebbings?

  Can I ask, when you meet with potential hires, when you meet with fellow founders in the valley, are there signs to you that really suggest that discipline? For me, it's when you may be asked for access to data room and they come back with a very thoughtful answer and pick out specific snippets from the data room and they send that, you know, at 11:30 the same day, not midway through the next day. Is that the sort of thing in terms of the discipline and how do you think about the tangible ways?

• 7:50Speaker 02

  Right, so I think the thing is, discipline for founders will be different from discipline for, like, for example, a salesperson, a product person. And so I don't think there is a silver bullet that tells you, okay, this person is disciplined. One thing that I've found very interesting as an entrepreneur is I started investing in startups maybe two years ago. As I was doing that, I started receiving investor updates. And I quickly noticed that the entrepreneurs who were sending the updates in the same format at the same time of the whatever month, week or quarter, were people that were making more progress than the people that would change the format all the time. Sometimes send it every month, sometimes every quarter. So that's how you can test for a founder along the way.

• 8:34Speaker 02

  Now, for sales, I think there is a ton of discipline around pipeline management and the tools you use and how you use them. For product, I think there is a ton of discipline around how to write specs and how do you communicate about them? And how do you track results? And so that's what I assess specifically for every role. But I also think that there is a lot of soft signals that you can have in a meeting. Just having someone answer the question that you've asked and know more than that is, I think, helpful in knowing if the person will be a disciplined person.

• 9:02Harry Stebbings?

  Listen, I couldn't agree with you more in terms of that clarity when answering questions. I did love the element of the investor updates though, because communication is one of the core parts that you suggest directing discipline towards, and investor updates in particular. So if we jump on that first then, what's your advice to founders here? There's a lot of conflicting advice I always see on Twitter. How often do you think they should be? What should they contain? Should they call out specific investors for help? What advice do you give to these founders?

• 9:28Speaker 02

  So there are, I think, three advice that I give. The first one is you should choose the metrics that you will track and you should not change them. Too often, I've seen entrepreneurs, for example, track revenue and then maybe revenue is not going as well as expected. So all of a sudden we'll switch to DAUs because DAUs is going better. I think that's the wrong thing to do. So pick a metric and make sure it grows and have no excuse for this metric not to grow. And if it doesn't grow, just be very transparent about the fact that it's not growing and just show what you're doing in order for this metric to grow. Second advice is just send it at the same time every month. I mean, so I recommend it every month because I think every week is too much work and when you're early, every quarter is too long. But if you don't want to do it every month, I think that's fine.

• 10:09Speaker 02

  And advice number three is be very precise in the asks that you have for your investors. So for example, at the end of the day, every founder wants more customers and new hires. But if you're saying, "Do you know any backend engineer? And do you know any company that would be interested in using Front?" Imagine an investor that's super busy and receiving this. It's very hard for them to know, "Oh, I can think of this company that could use Front", or "I know this backend engineer". And instead, if you say, "Here is a list of companies that we would love to talk to because I think they could be a good Front customer, and here is specifically the person we want to talk to", so for example, the CEO. So now the question is, "Do you know the CEO at company XYZ?"

• 10:54Speaker 02

  That's far easier for an investor to say yes or no than saying, "Who do you think could be a Front customer?"

• 11:00Harry Stebbings?

  I couldn't agree with you more there in terms of the specificity of the ask. If we apply that discipline then, maybe internally to the direct reports. I know another element that you really excel at. As I said, I spoke to even members on the team itself. What's included in the direct reports? When do they go out? And how does it help you, I guess?

• 11:18Speaker 02

  There are many ways I communicate internally and first company-wide, I do two things. One is I send an email every Monday morning or Sunday night. It used to be Sunday night and now I care about work-life balance more than before and therefore it's Monday morning. And I explain everything that we've done in the past week, everything that's going to be done next week. And I've been doing that since I started France. And I have only missed sending this email once, which was when Demo Day was happening, which was really crazy. But otherwise, I've always sent it and I've never had any excuse for not sending it. So that's how I do my communication internally, just to make sure everyone is on the same page. On top of that, we have an all-in, where you know, not everything can be described in an email.

• 12:03Speaker 02

  Like if I want a new hire to present themselves, if I want to demo something for the product, then all-in is better. So every Monday morning, nine AM PT, which is six PM Paris time, we have a company all-in. That's what I do company-wide. Now, for my direct reports, I do something different where at the beginning of every week, so ten AM every Monday morning, they receive an email explaining what my priorities for the week are. Because usually their priorities are somewhat correlated with my priorities. And so for them to receive it will give them more guidance on what they should focus their time on. So I'm doing this and on top of that, I also have some communication happening when one-on-ones are happening, but that's a different topic, so I will leave it for now.

• 12:44Harry Stebbings?

  I'm interested, what's the one-on-one communication line? That's super interesting.

• 12:48Speaker 02

  So I'm actually going to publish a Medium post about this early next week. Because when I think about the tools we've used to create a great culture, I think one-on-ones is probably the most powerful tool we've used. And so I want to share in this article how we do them. So the way we do them is we have weekly one-on-ones and monthly one-on-ones. Weekly one-on-ones about work and monthly one-on-ones are just about happiness. And so monthly one-on-ones, let's say I have a monthly one-on-one with you this week, I will send you an email a few days before on Monday, asking you a few questions. And in these questions, you will always find, one, in the past month, what have you been most happy about? Two, In the past months, what have you been least happy about? What can I do to make your professional life better?

• 13:32Speaker 02

  Any feedback questions for me? And then on top of this, I will add some other questions. And I will expect you to think about it and send me your answers at least twenty four hours before, so that I have the time to read and then the time to prepare the questions you've asked me to prepare. And what I found is, I think it's really great for me because I learn a lot and I have the peace of mind that every month we'll be able to talk about how you're feeling at work. But I think for you, then it gives you the opportunity to reflect every single month about, you know, what could be different for you to be happier. And that's been a very effective tool to make sure that engagement of employees was super high.

• 14:09Harry Stebbings?

  Absolutely, and then I guess also doing it across multiple different people within the team. If there's commonalities in the problems that they've found, you know that X is a really common problem that a lot of people are suffering from. So that now I totally get you and that's fascinating. In terms of the final form of communication though, again, the team told me about revenue updates. Walk me through this one, Matt Hild. Why do you do the revenue updates? Who does it go to and is there a structure?

• 14:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, so every week, all hands meeting, I show revenue. So meaning every single week, they know exactly how much churn we've had, how much expansion we've had and how much new business we've had. And we divide that by the different teams. So for example, EMEA plus the US plus the channel team. I've always done that and I found it very important because, you know, it's not that I obsess over revenue. It's just that I think there are just so many things that need to go right in order for revenue to keep increasing consistently at the rate you've decided was a good rate. And I think sometimes it's hard to do them because sometimes you're not hitting your goals. And every single week you're saying, okay, we've not done our goal again last week.

• 15:15Speaker 02

  But I think that's the only way for people to work on the exact right things. And so I've just kept doing them and I will keep doing them. And I think also giving context on why we're growing faster than expected or we're growing slower than expected is a very good thing for employees not to break out about anything happening.

• 15:34Harry Stebbings?

  I do have to also, I would be nervous that maybe, as you said, two weeks running for Whatever reason, we don't hit the targets that we want. How do you think about the ability for it maybe to deject the team or maybe just disincentivize the team? Is that a concern for you?

• 15:47Speaker 02

  It's definitely a concern and I think whenever, so one of our values at front is transparency. And I always tell people that it's very easy to say that transparency is one of your values and then it's insanely hard to actually live it 100%. And the reason it's hard is because as a human being, whenever there are bad news, then your temptation is to not share it. Because what you want instead is making sure your team is always as excited as possible. But what I found is people in the team will be engaged because they trust the company. And that's why they will work hard. They won't work hard if every single week we're telling them, everything is amazing, we've hit our goals. This is just not the reality of a business. Like a business will go through ups and downs.

• 16:31Speaker 02

  And you know, when eight things out of 10 are going well, then two things are not going well. And it's super important for the team to know so that they can focus their energy on bringing these things back on track. So I think there is some misconception about engagement being created by the energy of announcing good news versus engagement created by the trust and the transparency and the context that you will give to your employees.

• 16:56Harry Stebbings?

  Is it really difficult to scale transparency and trust with the scaling of team and the growth that you've seen with Front?

• 17:02Speaker 02

  So I don't think it's hard, meaning again, if you're very disciplined in the way you do it. So you know, we have these outlets today where there is a weekly email, there is a weekly O N. We have these dashboards in the office. Every month, we send all the data from the past month. Every quarter, we have a board meeting and so we'll send a board deck to everyone. And so I'm not constantly thinking, how am I going to scale this transparency? And or what additional information can I share? I think if I know that every week, every month, every quarter, these are the things that I'm going to share. Obviously, as the company scales, it needs to evolve. So for example, before, everyone knew pretty much everything. That's not the case anymore.

• 17:43Speaker 02

  So during all hands meeting, we introduced this Q and A that's anonymous, so anyone can ask questions. Ahead of time and the relevant person will answer these questions. And that I think didn't really make sense in the days because you know you could just come to my desk and ask me or come to my co-founder's desk and ask him. That's not the case anymore. So yes, it needs to evolve. But that's not what I have found to be the most hard about scaling this company.

• 18:05Harry Stebbings?

  You've left me a trading one there. What have you found to be the most challenging?

• 18:09Speaker 02

  So I think the most challenging is the fact that it never gets easier and it's the opposite. It just gets harder because you know, in the early days, you just need one customer every week in order to grow 10% week over week. And then now in order to double, triple every year, the amount of things that need to go right from the people we hire to new strategies we implement. Because what's got us here won't get us there. It's just increasingly difficult because the scale is bigger every single month, every single year. And I think it's the same thing. I think it's a misconception that, you know, I thought like when we raise money, then things will be easier. When I hire executives, then things will be easier. When you get funding from Sequoia and these amazing brand trainers joining our board, then you'll have a lot of answers to a lot of my questions.

• 18:54Speaker 02

  And that's like, the reality is, no, it's just harder every day. And I think that's, at the end of the day, was the hardest of this company is I can't think, oh, two years from now, things will be fine. No, things will be just even harder and I need to embrace it.

• 19:06Harry Stebbings?

  I mean, I absolutely love the positivity around that. And I couldn't agree with you more. I think it's a big fantasy that it gets easier at certain stages. But you mentioned Brian and Sequoia there, and I do have to touch on it with regards to the discipline element. Because the discipline that you've applied to fundraising really has made you incredibly well-known and respected with regards to how you orchestrate fundraisings. I'm always hearing though, don't meet VCs when you're not raising and then have a super compressed fundraising timeline and do it that way. That's the advice that's always given to me on the show. How do you respond to this advice? And how do you approach that relationship building with VCs?

• 19:40Speaker 02

  I would say this advice doesn't really resonate with me because I think it's contradictory in a sense that let's say you've never met any investor between your rounds and then you're meeting new investors because and you have a very compressed timeline. The problem is part of the reason why uh the fundraising will be successful is because of the presentation you're going to do and the metrics that you're going to show. But part of the reason is also because of the relationship you'll build with the potential investor that will join your board. And that's very hard in like a compressed timeline to build. I am very happy that I could build meaningful relationships with a few investors before our series B. So that then the timeline during the series B was solely about the business and the metrics. Because the rest, which takes months, years, had been done before.

• 20:25Speaker 02

  So I'd say that my advice would be slightly different. I'm not saying you should meet every month with 10 investors, but I think you need to invest enough in a few key relationships that you think can pay out so that then you can raise in a very, very short period of time.

• 20:40Harry Stebbings?

  I totally agree with you in terms of that inter-raised relationship building. In terms of those kind of encounters with VCs, when you are getting to know them and building that relationship. I know being a VC that VCs will always pry into, you know, customer growth, revenue growth, whatever form of traction they can, even in the getting to know you meetings. Can I ask, when there is this prying from investors, is there a right way to respond?

• 21:01Speaker 02

  So it's a good question. I I can tell you what I've done. I don't know if that's the the right thing. So first of all, I've always shared some information. I don't think that if you share nothing, people will be excited to meet with you every six months. Now, I've always chosen the metric that was the best, obviously. So for example, we have users, we have companies using the product, we have MR, whatever you choose. I always talked about the one that was the best, but also I always said that, so let's let's say I was at 30K MR, I would say we're at 20K MR. So I would always give a number that's below, so that, you know, if I raise it in two months and for some reason things are not going well in the next two months, because you can never predict and I'm a very paranoid person, then at least I have this buffer to show the person that the company has been growing.

• 21:46Speaker 02

  So that's a trick I've used. I don't know if it's a it's a good one.

• 21:49Harry Stebbings?

  Listen, I absolutely Love that. So let's go back to that kind of thirty K M R use case. And me and you've just met and you've just ruthlessly lied to me that you're at twenty K M R, not thirty K, which is the reality in that case. Tell me, how do you know when is the right time to go? Now's the time we catalyze these conversations and actually raise. What are the determinants to you?

• 22:09Speaker 02

  So I guess there are three criteria I use. The first one, which to me is the most important one, is when you feel like it. And it's something that a lot of entrepreneurs forget. But one thing where it's very hard to fake it and or to lie to investors is how confident you are in your business. And the reality is, you know, it's a lot of ups and downs. And so there will never be a moment where you're like overly confident about the business. But there will be moments where you're far more confident about the business. Because, for example, you've done three quarters in a row with hitting your goals. Or because you've just made a hire that you think is going to be very impactful, like whatever reason. And then sometimes, you know, things are great on paper, but you just heard about this customer that's going to churn.

• 22:53Speaker 02

  You just heard about this employee that's thinking about leaving. And so even if people tell you, but you've been growing three X last year and you've reached a million ARR. So this time to think about your series A, you just don't feel like it. So my number one advice would be you need to be in a good state of mind because that's something that's hard to fake. And then number two is you should have reached a milestone. Usually I I like to think about fundraising as I need this money in order to prove that, maybe in in one year, two years, three years. And so you should make sure that you've made significant progress over what you had said. And then you need to make sure that the money is actually useful to do something different and to hit a different milestone. I think if you have these three things, then you're ready to to raise.

• 23:31Harry Stebbings?

  I totally agree with you. Can I ask, in terms of hitting a different milestone, can it be just a scale on existing milestone? Can it be, so we're at one million ARR now and we're going to raise ten million series A to get to a six million ARR status? Is that good enough? Or does it have to be actually, we're going to open up new markets, we're going to see product evolve from this to this? Can it just be a scaling revenue?

• 23:52Speaker 02

  So the thing is, I would say it's not enough, but I'm not an investor and so you know better. And it depends at which stage you raise money. But one of the things that I used in my series B was saying, the difference between me raising a series B and me raising a series A is now I feel like the business is far more predictable. So it's almost like mathematics where I need to spend X to generate leads. And then I need to spend Y in order to convert these leads. And then once a person is a customer, then I know that I can expect this growth year over year. So I almost don't need your money because I still have some money on the banking account. Or I need a limited amount of money for that to scale. So that may be one of the reasons why you raise is to scale this thing that's working and you need some money.

• 24:36Speaker 02

  But if you want to ask for more money, then what I found being successful is to be able to say, on top of this, we can change our trajectory and accelerate our growth by doing X, Y, Z. And that's why I need more than just what's reasonable in order for us to go from three to 10.

• 24:53Harry Stebbings?

  No, I couldn't agree more in terms of that exciting investors, especially with the B round predictable revenue growth and then like increased trajectory. That's music to any investors' ears. I do have to ask you, because obviously you got many term sheets for the round. And in terms of doing the work on the investors from the founder side, I think it's something that's not often discussed. So in terms of investor DD, what does that process look like to you? And are there any traits that you really look for when diving into the background of the investor?

• 25:18Speaker 02

  Two things. One, something very personal to me is when I raise money and when I work with investors now that I've worked with a few investors, I realize that what I'm looking for is a combination of someone that's very challenging and demanding and someone that's very caring. And I don't want to have someone that's only caring and trusts me and is a cheerleader, because there is so much I don't know, that I want someone to be able to call me out. But I'm also very tough on myself. And so I don't need someone to keep challenging me if I don't know that they truly care, because I will tell them I'm already putting a lot of pressure on myself, so it's not helpful to have additional pressure. So that's the balance I'm trying to strike. And for example, when I chose Brian, Brian is actually one of the only investors during our series B that I didn't know much before. And so I hadn't built a relationship.

• 26:02Speaker 02

  Relationship with him. And so I knew it was very important to understand if we would work well together. So I I think I talked to probably ninety percent of the CEOs he had been on the board of. So I called them and I asked all the questions that I wanted to ask them. So same thing as hiring someone. But I did more because hiring, you can hire if things don't go well, but your investors, you cannot.

• 26:24Harry Stebbings?

  Yeah, no, I totally agree with you there. And having is super important and something that founders absolutely should do more of. I do wanna then dive into my favorite element being the quick fire arm, Mathilde. As you know, I say a short statement, very intense round. You give me your immediate thoughts in about sixty seconds. How does that sound?

• 26:40Speaker 02

  Super great.

• 26:41Harry Stebbings?

  Okay, so your favorite book and why? What must I be reading?

• 26:44Speaker 02

  So I think you should read The Power of Now, because I think it's the best recipe to be happy.

• 26:51Harry Stebbings?

  I mean, that really is quite a sell. What would you most like to change about tech in Silicon Valley, Mathilde?

• 26:56Speaker 02

  Bring more diversity.

• 26:58Harry Stebbings?

  Agreed. What can be done to do that tangibly?

• 27:00Speaker 02

  So I think diversity, there are a few different things. I think what I don't like about Silicon Valley is just the fact that everyone is working in tech. And I think that's gonna be very hard to change. And then there is diversity, you know, within companies. And that's something that you can change by being deliberate about it. And just making sure that you all spend the time to evaluate a lot of different people. Because at the end of the day, if you, let's take, for example, women versus men. If you spend the time to evaluate a lot of people, you should end up with fifty fifty. If you don't, then you will probably not end up with that ratio.

• 27:31Harry Stebbings?

  Hire fast, fire fast. Agree or disagree?

• 27:34Speaker 02

  Hundred percent agree.

• 27:36Harry Stebbings?

  What are the differences between good and great when working with ambassadors?

• 27:39Speaker 02

  So I would say, you know, good is the person is supporting you. And you can use the person as a resource. And great is the person is hands-on and actually working for you. So for example, interviewing candidates, leading a search, helping you on this new positioning exercise.

• 27:57Harry Stebbings?

  What do you know now that you wish you'd known at the start of your journey with Front?

• 28:00Speaker 02

  What I talked about earlier, about the fact that it only gets harder and and the fact that it's hard for everyone. Because I think a lot of founders, including myself, spend a lot of time wondering, is it normal that things are so hard? And if you know. That they are going to be that hard, then you just save a ton of time that's wondering if it's normal or not.

• 28:17Harry Stebbings?

  Can I ask, do you have a support mechanism in terms of a network, a group, a therapist who you can openly talk to and have very frank discussions with?

• 28:25Speaker 02

  Yes, so I have all of that. I have friends that are founders, I have mentors that are founders, I have a therapist. And I also have my husband who works at Front. I've been able to share a lot with him and that has been super helpful.

• 28:37Harry Stebbings?

  Great to hear about that kind of support system. Question from one of your investors in Elab Guild, work-life balance trade-offs, what are they?

• 28:44Speaker 02

  A super good question because, you know, sometimes you don't have a choice but working hard. And at the end of the day, your company needs to work out and so you need to put the right input in order for the right output. But I think the caveat to that is it's too easy for founders to think that their company is their life because they just do that. And it's not true. Like, there are many other things that are important. They just don't come to mind right away because you're not spending time on them. And I don't know if you know, and I already have talked about it, but two years ago, my co-founder was diagnosed with a cancer and now is cancer-free. So everything turned out to be great. But I think it's only during that moment that I realised that life was greater than the company I was running.

• 29:26Speaker 02

  And you shouldn't need things like this to realise it. So that's one of the things that I've changed in the way I did this company. Is putting a lot of emphasis on making sure that people are first happy and healthy and then they can give their best self to work.

• 29:38Harry Stebbings?

  Speaking of giving their best selves to work, let's put the foot forward and do the next five years for you and for Front. Just how big could it get, Matil?

• 29:45Speaker 02

  So I have crazy ambitions for Front and that's one of the things that I think this country brought me. You know, when I was in France five years ago, if you had told me I would be here, I would have said, I mean, I wasn't expecting more. And now I just feel like we're a tiny, tiny company. So I expect us to just keep growing as fast as we can. While always keeping in mind that the culture needs to be great. And so that's the limit to the growth that we want to see. But I'm excited about the future because from a market standpoint, product standpoint, I think the opportunity is huge. And there are billions of people using email every day. And I think if you change that for the better, then the impact in. And the rich is amazing, but also I'm super excited just for the people I currently with and the new people that I will bring to the team.

• 30:29Speaker 02

  And so I think the, you know, things will be hard, but I, inside of me, I know that we'll figure things out.

• 30:35Harry Stebbings?

  Mathilde, as I said, I was so excited to have you on after what's been incredible two years, both for you and for fun. So thank you so much for joining me today. It's been so much fun.

• 30:42Speaker 02

  Thank you so much, Harry. It was great.

• 30:46Harry Stebbings?

  What can I say? I told you, a thought leader for the next generation of CEOs. And if you'd like to see more from Mathilde, you can find her on Twitter at Colin Mathilde. Likewise, it'd be fantastic to welcome you behind the scenes here at the 20 Minute VC. You can do that on Instagram at H Stebbings 1996 with two Bs. I have to say, I would love to see you there. But before we leave you today, any VCs listening? Yep, well, check out CrunchDex. CrunchDex is the first company signal database on the market. It allows you to discover the world's fastest growing tech companies before anyone else. Check this out, CrunchDex launched only two months ago, yet it's already used by world leading investors who collectively manage over $8 billion worth of assets. So if you want to stay ahead of the curve, check it out at crunchdex.com. A lot of what we do on the 20 Minute VC is discuss scaling businesses, talk to experts,

• 31:30Harry Stebbings?

  pick the brains of founders and investors who tell us about the trends to watch out for, offer tips on fundraising and teach us how to excel at any company stage. But there's no playbook for building a great business, but we can certainly learn from people who've done it before. Beyond listening to this podcast and talking to mentors and advisors in your own network, it's important to have resources you can turn to when you're tackling a new challenge. And Stripe has built those resources for you. Whether you'd like to learn how to run a pricing experiment or build a knockout landing page, Stripe gives you the information you need to start, run and scale a technology company. And their guides are often written by or feature people like Elad Gil, experts in their space who you've probably heard on this very podcast. And you can read my favorite guide on scaling engineering organizations and many more on stripe.com/20vc.

• 32:15Harry Stebbings?

  That's T W E N T Y V C. And last but by no means least, to scale, you need customers. And Intercom offers a new and better way to acquire, engage and retain customers. They've built a suite of messaging first products from chatbots to a totally reimagined business messenger that modern internet businesses use to accelerate growth. Across the customer lifecycle from acquisition to engagement and support. And over the past eight years, they've totally reimagined what a business messenger can be, which is way more than simply live chat. Today, Intercom is used by the world's most forward-thinking companies. Eighty-four percent of Y Combinator companies that use a messaging or live chat tool use Intercom. Astonishing fact, that one. And they have over 30,000 customers, including larger companies too, like New Relic, Atlassian, and Shopify, and also smaller companies like Airtable and Coda.

• 32:59Speaker 01

  As always, I so appreciate your support and I can't wait to bring you a really special episode on Monday.